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Auction PR Publicity Announcements News and Information

Botanical Artworks at Bonhams Old Master Decorative and Modern Prints Auction

Bonhams Prints Sale: Tuesday 3 June 2008 at 1pm, New Bond Street, London

Horticulturists and garden lovers alike will have the opportunity to bid in Bonhams Prints sale on 3 June on a range of botanical works whose blooms are guaranteed to please year after year.

flower-print.jpgIncluded in Bonhams sale is a spectacular series of botanical plates from Dr Robert John Thornton’s opus, Temple of Flora. The thirteen plates depict a huge range of flowers including, Persian Cyclamen, Snowdrops, Egyptian Lilies, Tulips, Hyacinths, Blue Passion Flowers, a Night Blowing Cereus and Water Lilies. Dr Thornton created the Temple of Flora during the 18th century, a time which saw artists and botanists working together under royal patronage to illustrate and celebrate newly discovered botanical wonders. The prints are expected to fetch £3,500-4,500.

Garden lovers will also appreciate:

Lot 263 – Le Trois Bouquets by Marc Chagall (Russian/French, 18887-1985), a lithograph, 1976, estimate £10,000-12,000

Lot 197 – Green Man by Dame Elizabeth Frink R.A. (British, 1930-1993), screenprint, 1992, from “Green Man” series estimate £1,000-1,500

Lot 171 – Flower and Vase 1 by Prunella Clough (British, 1919-1999), estimate £800-1,200

Lot 133 – Dahlias and Ferns by John Piper (British, 1903-1992), an etching and aquatint, estimate £600-800

Lot 178 – Tulips by Dame Elizabeth Blackadder OBE, RA (British, born 1931), a lithograph, estimate £400-600

Lot 174 – Broken Rose by Ceri Richards (British, 1903-1971), estimate £300-500

George Plumptre, of Bonhams Chairman’s Office, who was the Gardening Correspondent for The Times newspaper for several years and is the author of numerous critically-acclaimed books on gardens says: “Flowers and plants have provided inspiration for artists throughout the centuries, from Dr Thornton’s Temple of Flora, which was one of the most popular and commercially successful botanical books of the 18th Century to the modernist work of Marc Chagall. The sale is wonderfully representative of both the classical and contemporary approaches to capturing the transitory beauty of flowers.”